Basaltic explosive volcanism, but no comet impact, at the Paleocene–Eocene boundary: high-resolution chemical and isotopic records from Egypt, Spain and Denmark

Warming and environmental changes in the eastern North Sea Basin during the Palaeocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum as revealed by biomarker lipids

“…continues a short distance above ash -33, i.e., into the basal few meters of the Fur Formation (HeilmannClausen, 1994). Previous results from two other sections in Denmark (Heilmann-Clausen and Schmitz, 2000;Schmitz et al, 2004) show that the dominance of Apectodinium closely corresponds to the CIE. The maximum of the CIE is, therefore, expected to be present in the glacially-disturbed interval.…”

“…Values for TOC content and δ 13 C composition of the Store Baelt section were previously reported by Heilmann-Clausen and Schmitz (2000) and Schmitz et al (2004) and show a similar pattern as for the Fur section: TOC content increases from <0.6% towards peak values of 5 % at 130.89 m depth (Fig. 3b), whereas the  13 CTOC record of the Store Baelt section shows a decrease of ~6 ‰ between 132.53 and 133.24 mbsf (Figs.…”

“…There is a distinct transition between the Glauconitic Silt and the lowermost Eocene Stolleklint Clay, which consists of finely laminated, non-calcareous clay. The lower boundary of the Stolleklint Clay is marked by a sharp negative isotope shift in total organic carbon (TOC) of ~6 ‰ at the base of the Stolleklint Clay between 133.24 and 132.53 mbsf (Heilmann-Clausen and Schmitz, 2000;Schmitz et al, 2004), concomitant with a sudden dominance of the dinocyst genus Apectodinium (Nielsen et al, 1986) Fig. 3 and 4).…”

“…In the eastern North Sea Basin, the PETM was previously identified by dinoflagellate stratigraphy and a 6-8 ‰ CIE in organic carbon (Heilmann-Clausen and Schmitz, 2000;Schmitz et al, 2004). Due to the close proximity to coastal areas it is likely that the sedimentary organic carbon contains large amounts of terrestrial organic matter, which may have a different stable carbon isotopic composition than marine organic matter (Bowen et al, 2004;Schouten et al, 2007b;Smith et al, 2007;Sluijs and Dickens, 2012).…”

Magnetofossil spike during the Paleocene‐Eocene thermal maximum: Ferromagnetic resonance, rock magnetic, and electron microscopy evidence from Ancora, New Jersey, United States

“…They acknowledged some evidence against their model, specifically: (1) the absence of an impact crater, which they attributed to a marine impact, (2) the absence of an observed depletion in 187 Os/ 188 Os ratios, characteristic of extraterrestrial material, which they attributed to undersampling, and (3) the absence of a peak in extraterrestrial helium, which is carried by fine-grained interplanetary dust particles rather than large impactors and is also not observed at the end-Cretaceous [Mukhopadhyay et al, 2001]. Schmitz et al [2004] examined platinum group elements (PGEs) in six marine PETM sections from Egypt, Spain, and Denmark. Only the Zumaya section exhibited a small Ir enrichment, and the PGE ratios of the enriched bed were inconsistent with a significant extraterrestrial component.…”